Philately: the hobby of kings (and a pop star or two): Part 3

In the third and final instalment of our series on famous stamp collectors, we delve into the world of music and sport stars, discovering that stamps may be considered pretty ‘cool’ after all!

Ronnie Wood, the lead guitarist of The Rolling Stones, is reported as being a stamp collector. So too is British pop singer, Sophie Ellis-Bexter. There are even reports that tennis player Maria Sharapova collects stamps. But most famously, music super stars Freddie Mercury and John Lennon were both childhood stamp collectors.

Freddie Mercury

Freddie Mercury (1946–1991) was the lead singer of the super group Queen. When he died in 1991, his family sold his childhood stamp albums, which was purchased by the British National Postal Museum and forms part of its archives. The proceeds of the sale went to setting up an AIDS charity.

Freddie Mercury’s collection includes stamps from a wide range of countries, including Britain, Eastern Europe and Zanzibar. The British Postal Museum and Archive notes that many of the stamps are arranged in interesting ways, whether by colour or size and even to form a letter of the alphabet. Pages from his collection can be viewed at the British Postal Museum and Archive website.

John Lennon

During his childhood, and well before his achieved worldwide fame as part of the Beatles, John Lennon (1940–1980) collected stamps, 550 stamps in fact. The stamps are contained in a 145-page album and are from all around the world, including India, the USA and New Zealand.

The Smithsonian Postal Museum purchased Lennon’s childhood stamp album in 2005, for US$53,000 and put it on display that same year. The exhibition and album can still be viewed online at the Smithsonian Postal Museum website.

The exhibition notes discuss the origin and contents of the collection:

“According to Lennon’s older cousin, Stanley Parkes, inspired the future Beatle’s interest in stamp collecting and gave him this album. Lennon replaced Parkes’ name and address on the album’s flyleaf with his own. He added his address at Mendips, the home he shared with his aunt Mary (“Mimi”) and her husband George Smith. Already a budding artist, Lennon sketched beards and moustaches of the likenesses of Queen Victoria and King George VI on the album’s title page. Lennon continued to collect and trade stamps for several years after receiving this album.”